Five Ways to Use a Speed Square

If you're doing any kind of DIY or construction work, there are a handful of absolutely essential tools you need in your belt: hammer, tape measure, level, to name just a few. Batting cleanup in this list is the humble speed square. Easy to use, inexpensive, light and portable, made of one piece of metal so it won't become untrue if dropped. And most importantly: multifunctional.

How many functions, you ask?  Read on for ManMade's five top ways to use a speed square!

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Try This Simple Trick Anytime You're Laying Out Cuts or Marks on Your Woodworking Projects

Over the weekend, I was working in the garage when I found myself in a familiar position. I needed to transfer a pencil line from one face of a piece of stock to the one around its corner. Sounds simple enough to do with a square, but I've had this problem before. Sighting the line isn't accurate enough, and a traditional try or combination square isn't of much help here. Here's why:    

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ManMade Essential Toolbox: Why Every Person Should Own a Speed Square

In this edition of the ManMade Essential Toolbox, we're looking at the speed square, a simple carpentry tool that does more that you might think. 

I love a tool whose common name indicates its purpose. Oh, what's a screwdriver do? A citrus squeezer? How about a box cutter? The function is all right there in the name. 

In many ways, a speed square falls right into the category. It tells helps you determine "square" – that is, when one edge or line is exactly 90° to another – and it helps you do it quickly. Done. Right? Wrong. 

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ManMade Essential Toolbox: The Best Combination Square for Woodworking... and Why You Definitely Need One

The best combination square will quickly become essential in your shop. ManMade is sharing our picks for the essential tools we think every creative guy and DIYer needs. We've selected useful, long-lasting tools to help you accomplish a variety of projects, solve problems, and live a hands-on lifestyle that allows you to interact with and make the things you use every day.

The saying goes, "Measure twice, cut once." So does that mean that the layout and setup process is twice as important as the sizing and milling? Absolutely. In fact, it may be more like three or four more times. Any person who's completed a full-on woodworking

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DIY Tip: How to Quickly Add Fractions for Woodworking Projects... No Math Required

You know that old question that some stereotypical student always asks their math teacher? The one that's some variation on "When are we actually gonna use this in real life?" The answer, at least for arithmetic, geometry, and even a bit of trigonometry

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Finally: Here's How To Pay Friends with Your Smartphone

Is it just me, or has the future turned out to be a bit of a disappointment? Hoverboards and jetpacks aside, I still can't beam anybody up, or down, or cook steak in my microwave, or have a sassy robot maid clean my house. But Square Cash is one area in which the future seems to have delivered, and I've been telling everyone about it for almost a year now. But, let me back up a bit and talk about the suckiness of non-future-money: paper currency.

Do you know what happens every third time I visit the drive-through ATM to get cash? I lose my card in the machine. Do you know how many armpits, waist bands, and god-knows-what-other sweaty places

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Incredible City Square Collage Photographs

Photographer Adam Magyar captures bustling city squares teeming with crowds of people on the move....that don't actually exist. Instead, each work is a composite of photos of individual people, shot from only a few feet about their heads.

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100 Years of Times Square

I've spent the last hour or so mesmerized by Lilek's vintage post card tour of Times Square since 1904. Gathering images of all the iterations of Broadway and Seventh Ave between West 42nd and 47th, its fascinating to see this tourist trap become the neon-coated New Year's Eve party it is today...and decide whether its always owned that role in the city's identity.

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